Believe

Believe

Today’s Bible Reading: Gen 15:1-17:27

Genesis 15:6

And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Righteousness is not innate. It is not inherited. It is not earned. It is not merited. It is imputed. It is accounted to us, placed on our ledger.

Abraham and Sarah were childless. They had no heir. There was no one to carry on their name. The beneficiary of their estate was their chief servant. Their dreams of a family were shattered. Yet previously God had promised that Abraham’s name would be great and that a great nation would emerge from him. Now 10 years later he had no heir. It seems God’s promise was null and void.

But God intervened to reassure him that indeed a child would come from his seed. An heir would come from his body. He promised that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the heavens. He couldn’t comprehend or calculate how this could happen. Yet he believed. His hope was settled in what God said. His confidence was in his word. He believed. Against all odds, he believed. Holding tight to the promise of God, he believed.

Righteous was accounted to him. Not because he was righteous. Nor was it  because he had done anything to deserve God’s favor. It was by simply believing God’s word. By placing his faith and hope in him. It was by trusting in him.

It is not different for us. Our rightness can never make us righteous. Scripture asserts that there is none who is righteous (Romans 3:10). It says that our “good works” are nothing but filthy rags before a Holy God (Isaiah 64:6). Oh, compared to culture, our deeds may be impeccable, but compared to God they are deplorable. This leaves us in a state of unrighteousness. We are sinners before the Sovereign.

Like Abram, our acceptance before God is not contingent on our behavior, but our belief. It is wholly upon our belief in the redemptive work of Christ that salvation is secured. It is because of our belief in His sinless life, our belief in His substitutional sacrifice, our belief in His supernatural resurrection. It is because of our belief in Him. He is our righteousness. Our unrighteousness was placed upon him, on His account and His righteousness placed on ours. Our righteousness is imputed, not inherited. Therefore, we are righteous in Him.

Thus, like Abraham, our acceptance before God is based upon our belief, not our behavior. It is not by our merit, but His mercy. It is not by our goodness, but His grace. We believed and God counted it unto us as righteousness.

Today rejoice that the Lord looked upon your unrighteous state and made Christ known to you. Praise Him that in your hopelessness, He revealed Jesus to you. Praise him for Christ’s work on your behalf. Thank Him that He was clothed in your unrighteousness on the cross, that He might cloth you in His righteousness from the cross. Thank Him that He enabled you to believe in Him. Rejoice that your salvation is not contingent on your behavior, but belief in Him and that you possess righteousness not of your own, but in Christ alone. Pray for those whose hope in heaven is seen in their own hand. Plead for those who continually work to gain God’s favor and who consider their merit sufficient for salvation, and their works the way in. Pray that like you, that might simply believe.